I ran my second Run Melbourne yesterday and looking at the results I’m pretty happy.

My official time was 25:21.8 (down from 28:07, 2:46 faster than last year)

I was 215th overall, last year I was 544th.

33rd in my age group (40-49).

162nd male, up from 344 last year.

Still room for improvement and, despite my best efforts, I was still caught behind slow runners at the start. It’s frustrating that I couldn’t actually get a clear run until the 800m point by which stage a quarter of the race is almost done. I guesstimate this cost me about 20 seconds on my time.

Any way, results are motivating enough to have me aiming for 24:00 next year.

I love these mints, they are just perfect and they serve another purpose now; they remind me of my mum who fell in love them too when I introduced her them to her. To this day Peter still keeps a bag on top of the microwave so you can imagine my horror when I woke up this morning to the news that Allen’s were stopping production of a large range of their lollies – including finally killing off my Oddfellow mints.

Of course the first thing I did was jump on to Twitter and complain, which appeared on my Facebook page. There’s not much else I could do.

In fourteen years of being together Rae and I had never been to a gig together. A One Day On The Green but never a good old fashioned pub gig. Last night we put that to rest and went to see Frank Turner at the Corner, Frank being one of the very few artists we both agree on.

We went out to dinner before hand wandered up to the Corner a little after doors were open, only they hadn’t yet so we walked around corner and joined the end of the queue. Right at the spot Frank Turner was standing having a smoke. All by himself. Two metres away from people lining up to see him. I wasn’t sure if was cool to whip out the phone and take a snap but someone else broke ranks and went up to him, and he was more than cool about that.

Now I’m normally an incredibly shy type but this opportunity was too good to miss so, as the queue suddenly moved forward, I grabbed Rae and went the other way.

He is a genuinely a nice guy. I got to shake his hand, have a quick chat and then told him about Rae’s new Freddy Mercury ink, knowing that Freddy is one of his idols. He loved the tattoo, told Rae it was ‘f***kn awesome’ and that he had been planning on getting one the same. He then reached out and gave her a hug!. Man, I’m still buzzing the next day.

The gig, of course, was amazing and I’m so happy I bought tickets for his Geelong show. He’s coming back next year, and we’ll be front and centre again.

Rae and Moo went vintage clothes shopping today leaving the boys and I at home. I thought ‘Why should the girls have all the fun?’ so I took the boys shopping.

I bought them a Lego set each and I popped in to JB to check out a new mouse. On the way out there were two young ladies manning a stall. One looked at me, smiled and instead of the spiel she said ‘Being a super dad today?’

What an odd thing to say and it’s had me wondering what on earth I was doing that was so super?

We’ve been a one cat family for a few years and even though we’ve talked about getting another we’ve erred on the side of keeping the peace for Bella, who has been a lot happier since she was queen of the house.

Well, last Friday as we were having a glass of bubbles on the deck Rae read that the Lost Dog Home had too many cats and to they were waiving all fees on adoptions. Then she showed me pictures of poor cats wanting a family. She must have got me at exactly the right time ‘cause I said yes.

Saturday we all went in to the Lost Dogs Home in North Melbourne to meet the cats. There were so many but one lady met our criteria and caught our eye. We needed a calm cat, one who could cope with another cat, one that could cope with kids and ‘Kitty’ was it. She came out of her little box and sat there, accepted pats from excited kids and didn’t bat an eyelid. She was it. What made us even happier was when we found out she had been waiting three months for a family. She’s six years old, or so the home thinks, and is so relaxed she must have come from another family.

She is the calmest cat you could wish to meet. When Bella made it very clear she wasn’t happy that there was another cat on the couch Frankie didn’t even flinch at the hissing or growling. She has spent the last two days sitting on Moo’s bed having decided this is her safe place until she’s happy to start exploring her new world. After months living in a tiny box it’s no wonder she is a bit overwhelmed at so much freedom.

Bella isn’t happy with us, refusing to sit on our laps now but the protest doesn’t reach as far as bed. Our bed is too comfortable to give up, principles or not. So we’re a two cat family again. Hopefully it won’t be long until Frankie is comfortable here and wants to explore more of the house and become one of us.